An unnamed NHL player said if his union gives in and gives up but a cent to NHL owners, he’s going to walk away from hockey.

Thus TSN’s Darren Dreger. Considering Dreger didn’t smile when he said that, and considering the tone suggested there might be more such players, we should take Dreger’s (and the unnamed player’s) words seriously.

Why? Because they point directly to the crux of the problem that exists between the league and its players’ association.

The unnamed player’s statement is an example of sheer arrogance at its best.

Of course, arrogance in and of itself can hardly be criticized as a major character flaw. Anyone who wishes to achieve the summit of her or his chosen profession has got to be self-centred and arrogant more than her or his competition. It’s part of the equation.

A hockey player, perfectly aware it’s a team game, still knows she or he has to concentrate on her or his own training, just to make her- or himself recognizably better than all the others who also vie for a position on the team. If that player feels she or he is perfectly unique and irreplaceable, fine. Except, there are (or there should be) limits.

And nobody’s irreplaceable, either.

One can, of course, expect that – should that player be as good as his word – he would stand up and say he’s leaving if and when (more when than if) the NHLPA does accept some of the NHL’s CBA conditions that it has found unacceptable, unmentionable, even, so far. One can expect, too, that said player would file his retirement papers with the league forthwith, so as not to miss out on any of the rather generous benefits former NHL players get.

And, of course, let’s hope the player Darren Dreger had in mind isn’t some kind of a fourth-line slugger who plays every fifth game and thanks his lucky stars when he gets more than three minutes playing time.

But, on a more serious note: that player, whoever he is, has shown precisely that – to him – the game is all about him. That he is entitled. And that’s where he must have clashed with his employers who are precisely of the opposite view, so far as entitlements go.

Real life, when he’s going to face it (not if, but when), will teach him he’s not entitled to anything whatsoever. Society doesn’t owe him anything. And neither does his employer, provided the player’s salary cheques haven’t bounced.

His attitude, if it’s typical for the majority of NHLPA members, doesn’t bode well for the NHL and its future. The attitude that says I’m here, and you all be better happy to know that I’m here, and serve me well, or else I’ll kick up a riot, does not translate into any kind of peace, never mind labour peace.

Let’s get a few things straight here.

Wayne Gretzky – when forced by reporters who cornered him in the locker room after a game – to speak about something he’d done during the game, would only speak of himself in third person singular. There’s no I in team, that’s what he was saying. Only once in his professional career did he allow his ego to get the better of him. It happened in the spring of 1993. Gretzky captained the Los Angeles Kings all the way to the Stanley Cup finals. A few bad overtime bounces and a Marty McSorley illegal stick in Game 2 later, the Montreal Canadiens won the Cup in five games. So disappointed was Gretzky, he just couldn’t hide his immediate feelings. And so, in a post-game interview that was broadcast live on Hockey Night in Canada, Gretzky said he was so upset, he was going to retire from hockey right then and there. Instead of banner headlines announcing the new champion, quite a few publications went with the Great One’s announcement, thus stealing the Canadiens’ thunder. A lot of eyebrows went up that night and the next day, that’s how unusual it was for Gretzky to be so unsportsmanlike.

To his credit, Gretzky would never ever repeat this mistake. In fact, even though tempted (and asked) by many to say publicly what he thought about then-Team Canada coach Mark Crawford’s decision not to send him out for a turn in a shootout against Team Czech in the semifinals of the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, Gretzky wouldn’t take the bait. Whether he would have scored, well, it’s one of those “what ifs,” but as it was, Dominik Hasek stole the show, and the Czechs went to the finals, to beat the Russians and win their first (and, thus far, only) Olympic gold. The shot of Gretzky, sitting dejected on Team Canada’s bench after this shootout loss, has become famous. And yet, dejection or not, Gretzky would not stoop as low as to criticize the coach.

Why these memories?

Simply because one wonders who that unnamed player could have been that he thought himself to be more than the game.

Absolutely, if there is a lockout, and it’s more of a when than if, people are going to blame that side or the other. The owners are unfair. The players are too greedy. You know the drill.

But if anyone helped the owners’ case in the eyes of the general public, it would be that unnamed player. What he said showed how deeply ingrained the atmosphere of entitlement has grown, how incredibly removed some of the athletic stars are from reality.

A TSN reader asked a very relevant question in a forum on the network’s website the other day. What would, he enquired, Sidney Crosby be doing, with his high school education, if he didn’t know how to play hockey? Would he be serving a hurried clientele in a fast-food joint, asking customers whether they want fries with that? All that for an annual salary that is less than his food money on a week-long road trip? When you think about this question, you’ve got to ask yourself: how many NHL players have any serious education to speak of, anyhow? How do they, pray tell, plan to live in a society that puts more and more emphasis on skills you can’t get any other way but from school?

When people found years ago that Joe Juneau was an aeronautics engineer, they were speechless. That’s how rare a bird he was.

How many people start going to colleges, only to drop out within a year or two, just because someone was offering them huge money to play a children’s game?

How many former professional hockey players will have an interesting future once they’re done with this part of their lives? How many colour commentators do TV and radio networks need? How many NHL coaching positions are there?

There aren’t that many Silver Foxes around, like Craig MacTavish, who return to school and manage to graduate with a Master’s degree in business administration between coaching gigs and appearances on TSN hockey panels.

So, what’s the unnamed player going to do? Apply himself to win a Nobel Prize in poetry?

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